Jasper Francis Cropsey Biography | Oil Painting Reproductions

2-18-1823 Staten Island, USA - 6-22-1900 Hastings-on-Hudson, USA

As a young boy, Jasper Francis Cropsey was in poor health and when not able to attend school, Cropsey taught himself to draw by doing architectural sketches and landscapes drawn in the margins of his textbooks.

He studied architecture in school and set up his own office in 1843 and he also studied watercolor and life drawing at the National Academy of Design with Edward Maury and first displayed there in 1844. The following year he was elected an associate member of the National Academy of Design and decided to just paint landscapes.

Jasper Francis Cropsey was elected a full member of the Academy in 1851. In 1855 he moved to London and stayed seven years there, painting and sending his art to the Royal Academy and to the International exhibition of 1862.

Returning home, he opened a studio in New York and specialized in landscape paintings during the New York and New England Autumn season, when the trees turn vivid colors. Jasper Francis Cropsey was a first-generation Hudson River School Artist. In 1869 Cropsey built a giant 29-room Gothic Revival mansion and studio in Warwick, New York that he named Aladdin. He would split his time between New York City, and Aladdin until the mansion was sold in 1884.

Jasper Francis Cropsey died in obscurity but was rediscovered by galleries and collectors in the 1960s. Today, Cropsey's paintings are found in most significant American museums and also in the White House.

Cropsey's interest in architecture continued throughout his life and had an impact on his painting, in the arrangement and outline of forms in a precise way. But Jasper Francis Cropsey was best known for his lavish use of color and painted autumn landscapes that startled viewers with their boldness and brilliance.